A fictionalized account of rebuilding a social life after divorce.
After more than thirty years together, I expected divorce to change my home and my routines. I was less prepared for how many friendships would become uncertain. At fifty, I was suddenly unsure which invitations still included me.
Most of our friends were couples. Some were kind but distant; others seemed unsure how to see one of us without appearing to choose a side. Only one close friendship remained much as it had been. I missed the ordinary evenings almost as much as the people.
Eventually, I joined a singles group that made a point of not being a dating service. That suited me. I wanted company, activities, and people who knew me independently of my former marriage.
Then I began dating a man from the group. Fifteen months later, we separated amicably, and an old fear returned: would another relationship ending mean another social life disappearing?
I could not control everyone’s response. I could keep making individual invitations, stay involved in activities I enjoyed, and avoid asking friends to carry messages between us. He and I could discuss how to attend shared events without turning the group into a negotiation about our breakup.
Some awkwardness was likely. I did not want to interpret every delayed reply as the beginning of another loss, though experience made that difficult.
“Who gets the friends?” sounds as if they are part of the settlement. They are people with their own connections and choices. This time, I wanted to give those friendships room to exist in their own right, even while I was still frightened of losing them.
